SDG&E toughens shut-off criteria

Power could still be cut if wind is strong enough

San Diego Gas & Electric Co. still plans to cut power to rural county residents to avoid catastrophic fires, but unlike an earlier proposal, winds will have to be stronger, the blacked-out areas smaller and the outages shorter.

The company has also shelved plans to ask for a change in how language governing its liability for blackouts is worded. Its critics said the change would have saved the company from having to pay if someone were injured because of the utility’s decision to cut power.

Meeting this week with critics who helped block the company’s power-cut plan last year, David Geier, an SDG&E vice president, said the company hasn’t finalized how it might cut power once fire season starts Sept. 1.

“The time is here,” he said. “We really need to continue to be prepared.”

SDG&E lines were blamed for three of the big fires that tore through the county in 2007. Powerful Santa Ana winds caused power lines to hit one another and a tree to hit a line. The winds then caused the fires to spread wildly.

Previously, the utility proposed cutting power to large areas when wind speeds topped 35 mph. The company’s new plans call for outages when winds exceed design standards — generally winds greater than 56 mph for most of the system, and more than 85 mph in areas were the electric system has been fortified to withstand stronger winds.

A critic of the prior shut-off plan said there are still some issues.

“The question is, when do you do it and can you do it?” said Diane Conklin, who heads the Mussey Grade Road Alliance, a community group near Ramona. “The wind at 56 mph doesn’t mean all the cascading effects of such a shut-off are addressed.”

Many of the ideas the utility proposed last year won’t be part of the new plan — including issuing warnings to residents and giving cash cards to people in the blacked-out areas.

The biggest difference is that the shut-offs wouldn’t be in anticipation of dangerous conditions, but rather a reaction to existing problems.

In 2008 and 2009, SDG&E planned to use a variety of criteria to decide when power would be cut, including wind speeds, red-flag warnings and humidity levels.

Critics said that was illegal because SDG&E, as a regulated utility, is required to provide power to its customers, and it hadn’t proved that its criteria were warranted.

This year, SDG&E will cut power to individual circuits, rather than larger areas, when it determines that it can’t run its system safely. It will monitor wind meters in high-risk neighborhoods and have SDG&E workers patrol those areas.

And some areas — downtown Ramona, for instance — won’t be cut off no matter how windy it gets.

Last year’s cutoff proposal proved controversial when residents worried they’d be left without any communications; schools complained students would be stranded; cell phone companies said customers would lose service; and water companies warned that firefighters would be left without water.